World Surfing Championships in Biarritz (20-28 May 2017)

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The ISA World Surfing Games 2017, the official world surfing championship, will be held in Biarritz, from 20-28 May. Up to 200 athletes from more than 40 nations will compete in the 30th edition.

Biarritz Credit: Aquashot/Atout France

Welcoming this major international sporting event in France comes at a strategic time for surfing and French sport.

This event, which celebrates the 60th anniversary of the birth of surfing in France in 1957, is the first international surfing competition since the formalization of surfing as an Olympic discipline on 3 August 2016. It will be a preview of what surfing will be like at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

The ISA World Surfing Games will take place in France for the third time in history : 1980 (Biarritz) and 1992 (Lacanau). The entire French sports community, including the French Federation of Surfing, fully supports the bid by the city of Paris to host the 2024 Olympic Games.

"I’m really excited to see the return of our flagship competition in Europe. France is a major surfing destination and Biarritz, in particular, is a magnificent coastal town which has been transformed by surfing in recent decades." - Fernando Aguerre, International Surfing Association president